Caroline baseball pro takes new job

A Caroline High graduate, Tony Beasley takes a bigger job with the Washington Nationals.

Tony Beasley of Bowling Green continues to make Caroline County proud with his successes in professional baseball.

For the past two seasons, Beasley has managed the Washington Nationals triple A club in Syracuse where he has compiled a 136-152 record. As a result of front office changes by the Nationals, the position of roving minor league coordinator was offered to Beasley last week, and he accepted the offer. He will turn 47 on Dec. 5.

With seven minor league teams to keep track of, Beasley will be busy enough, but the job also calls for him to work with prospective players and develop defensive instruction that will be used throughout the organization. In addition to Beasley’s promotion, the Nationals announced that they are promoting the franchise farm director, Doug Harris, to assistant general manager. Former scouting director Kris Kline was promoted to a similar position.

Roy Clark, the Nationals’ assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel, recently took a position with the Los Angeles Dodgers, thus leaving room for repositioning in the Washington organization.

Beasley’s tenure in professional baseball included working within the Pittsburgh Pirate organization from 2001-2005 as a very successful minor league coach. He was the Pirates’ third base coach in 2008-2010 as well as serving in the same position for Washington in 2006. As manager of the Syracuse team, Beasley had the opportunity to work with a lot of major league players as they were working their way into the major leagues, including such players as Brice Harper.

Beasley was praised for the work he has done in the past and was offered a choice of staying as a manager or making the change as he has done. Harris mentioned that Beasley provides a skill set that will be very beneficial to the Washington Nationals.

Beasley, who was an all-state middle infielder his senior year at Caroline High School, played for Louisburg Junior College in North Carolina in 1986 and 1987. He then transferred to Liberty University where he played from 1988 until 1989 where he led the team with 24 stolen bases in 1989.

Beasley spent nine seasons as a player in the minor leagues and batted .260 with 22 homers and 242 RBI in 854 games, according to Wikipedia. He was originally selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 19th round of the 1989 June draft before being acquired by Pittsburgh in a deal for infielder Tommy Shields in September 1991. In his minor league career, Beasley was named to the Carolina League All-Star team in both 1990 and 1991. He also garnered Southern League All-Star laurels in 1996.

It was reported that Beasley was excited about the position because in addition to giving him an opportunity to deal with all levels of the minor league teams from players to managers, it also gave him more time with his family at home.